In iOS 8, Apple introduced app extensions which let you extend functionality beyond your app and make it available to users from other parts of the system like in other apps or from the Notification Center. iOS defines different types of extensions, each tied to an area of the system such as the keyboard, Notification Center, e.t.c. A system area that supports extensions is called an extension point. Below is a list of the extension points in iOS.

Today – Shows brief information and can allow performing of quick tasks in the Today view of Notification Center

Share – Share content with others or post to a sharing website

Action – Manipulate content in a host app

Photo Editing – Edit photos or videos within the Photos app

Document Provider – Provide access to and manage a repository of files

Custom Keyboard – Provide a custom keyboard to replace the iOS system keyboard

We will cover all these extension points in this and subsequent tutorials. With this article, we will focus on the Today Extension.[Read more…]

Do you still remember the Recipe app that we have worked on several months ago? At that time, we showed you how to display a list of recipes using UITableView. Wouldn’t be great if it can display the recipe in a nice grid view?

The iOS 6 SDK introduces a new class called UICollectionView that allows developers to create grid-like layout out of the box.

If you have no idea about grid-like layout, just take a look at the built-in Photos app. The app presents your photos in grid format. In the pre-iOS 6 world, you have to write lots of code or make use of other libraries in order to build a similar layout. The UICollectionView, in my opinion, is the most spectacular API in iOS 6. Not only it simplifies the way to arrange visual elements in grid layout, it even lets developers customize the layout (e.g. circular, cover flow style layout) without changing the data.

In this tutorial, we will build a simple app to display a collection of recipe photos in grid layout. Here are what you’re going to learn:

Customizing UINavigationBar including background image and text style of title

Customizing the appearance of UIBarButtonItem

As usual, we’re going to illustrate the concept by converting a plain navigation bar to one with customized graphics. However, to help you focus on learning the customization, we’ve prepared the Xcode project for you to start with. Before proceeding, first download the Xcode project here (note: the project is created using Xcode 4.5).

If you build and run the project, you’ll get an app with simple navigation UI. Now we’ll work together to style the navigation bar, customize the bar buttons and assign our own background image for the view.[Read more…]

The iOS SDK has made it really easy to send email using the built-in APIs. With a few line of codes, you can launch the same email interface as the stock Mail app that lets you compose an email. In this tutorial, we’ll build a very simple app to show you how to send both plain text and HTML email using the iOS SDK.

As said in the previous post, I have another question to answer before moving onto Storyboard tutorial.

How can I delete a row from UITableView?

This is another common question people raised when building the Simple Table App. Again, it’s easier than you thought. But before jumping into the coding part, I have to introduce you the Model-View-Controller model, which is one of the most quoted design patterns for user interface programming.

You can’t escape from learning Model-View-Controller (MVC for short) if you’re serious about iOS programming. Not limited to iOS programming, MVC is commonly used and quoted in other programming languages such as Java. If you come from other programming backgrounds, MVC shouldn’t be new to you.

Is it fun to create the Hello World app? In this tutorial, we’ll work on something more complex and build a simple app using Table View. If you haven’t read the previous tutorial about the iOS programming basic, check it out first before moving on.

First, what’s a Table View in iPhone app? Table View is one of the common UI elements in iOS apps. Most apps, in some ways, make use of Table View to display list of data. The best example is the built-in Phone app. Your contacts are displayed in a Table View. Another example is the Mail app. It uses Table View to display your mail boxes and emails. Not only designed for showing textual data, Table View allows you to present the data in the form of images. The built-in Video and YouTube app are great examples for the usage.[Read more…]

I hope you have configured your development environment properly with Xcode installed. If you haven’t done so, check out our previous article about what you need to begin iOS programming. We’ll use Xcode 4.3.2 to work on the tutorial. However, you can also Xcode 4.2 to build the app in case you can’t upgrade to the latest version of Xcode.

You may have heard of “Hello World” program if you have read any programming book before. It has become the traditional program for first-time learner to create. It’s a very simple program that usually outputs “Hello, World” on the display of a device. In this tutorial, let’s follow the programming tradition and create a “Hello World” app using Xcode. Despite its simplicity, the “Hello World” program serves a few purposes:

It gives you a better idea about the syntax and structure of Objective C, the programming language of iOS.

It also gives you a basic introduction of the Xcode environment. You’ll learn how to create a Xcode project and create user interface with the built-in interface builder.

You’ll learn how to compile a program, build the app and test it using the Simulator.

Lastly, it makes you think programming is not difficult. I don’t want to scare you away.